People lined up outside the post office in Dr. Runnel's store in Skagway waiting to pick up mail, probably 1897

• Main Author: Warner, Arthur Churchill, 1864-1943
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1897
• Subjects: Post offices > Alaska > Skagway; Queues > Alaska > Skagway; Yukon; Dawson; Skagway; Alaska
• Online Access: http://cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org:80/cdm/ref/collection/warner/id/417

After gold was discovered in the Yukon Territory, thousands of people left for the Klondike to join in the gold rush in the Summer of 1897. Shows Frank Reid (second person left of righthand tree), editor and Miss DeSucca (between the center trees), and S. F. White, a real estate man (leaning against the tree). The site is the present 5th Street between Broadway and State. Warner 111 For those now living so far from home, getting to the gold fields may have seemed easy compared to getting their mail. Both the Canadian and the U.S. government were caught off guard by the speed and volume of the stampede. During the summer, mail could be carried by boat along the Yukon from St. Michael's, Alaska, but winter mail was brought up from Skagway, across the pass and into Dawson by dog sled. First class mail had the best chance of getting through, especially during winter months. Everything else was left for summer steamships. [Source: National Postal Museum web site, http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/gold/almostamericans.htm]